In May 5 & 6, 2011, I will be traveling to Washington, DC to attend a two-day conference organised by the Global Internet Governance Academic Network (GigaNet) in association with the American University’s School of International Service. The title of the Conference is – ‘Global Internet Governance: Research and Public Policy Challenges for the Next Decade’. The first day, the conference is more policy-oriented, discussing current themes relating to Internet Governance and public policy and the Secretary for Commerce, Larry Strickling will be delivering the keynote speech. In the second day, the conference will take a more academic tone and will discuss various issues of Internet governance under a more scholarly approach.
I am presenting my paper on the UDRP and the way it has transformed trademark law the second day and I cannot possibly contain my excitement. I have attended various conferences where I spoke about the UDRP in a very intellectual and engaging environment. But this time, two of the ‘originals’ will be there. Back in 2000, when ICANN introduced to the world the UDRP, the writings of three academics made a significant impact on the way the scholarly community – myself included – came to understand what the UDRP was, its flaws and the political and legal struggles that led to its creation. Two of these academics will be attending the conference and I have the honour in being in the same panel with one of them. The first one is Professor Michael Froomkin, whose article ‘ICANN’s UDRP: Its Causes and (Partial) Cures’ provided us with a deep understanding concerning the institutional problems with ICANN and WIPO – the masterminds behind the UDRP’s inception – and the procedural problems with the Policy itself. The second one is Professor Milton Mueller. His account of the UDRP in his article – ‘Rough Justice: A statistical assessment of ICANN’s Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy’ shed light to some very specific procedural problems with the UDRP, e.g. forum shopping, wide interpretation of the bad faith element, bias, etc. Fast forward ten years later and a lot (and nothing) has happened. For starters, I got my PhD and published my book on the regulation of domain names, which, amongst others, also re-iterated and expanded on those procedural flaws identified by Professors Froomkin and Mueller. Second, ICANN debated and produced what it hopes to be the penultimate version of its Guidebook in relation to new gTLDs, which incorporates new protection mechanisms for trademarks, building upon the model of the UDRP. Trademark owners appeared again in full force, pushing for stronger forms of protection; only this time, they also had as their allies the governments of the world, which ‘bought’ their unsubstantiated arguments that, under the new new gTLDs, trademarks are not secured on the Internet, thus the strongest possible protection is vital. Moreover, ICANN’s Generic Names Supporting Organisation (GNSO) opened the UDRP brief for review, however, it still very premature to determine its success. And, last but not least, the UDRP has evolved in such a way that it is now a model that has adjudicated more than 45,000 domain name disputes, making the mechanism a legal regime in its own right. These are some of the issues that I will be raising and discussing in my presentation in Washington in the company of two of my mentors. I hope that my research on domain names and my demonstration of the way the UDRP has altered our understanding of trademark law will constitute a logical extension of the arguments submitted by Mueller and Froomkin almost ten years ago. These are the ‘originals’ as I call them and being part of this group is certainly very thrilling. In a space of two days, two ICANN-related documents made their appearance: GAC’s response to the ICANN Board’s questions in relation to the scorecard and the new gTLD Applicant Guidebook responding to the GAC’s document. The issue of Rights Protection Mechanisms was apparently so significant that the GAC submitted its clarifications in a separate document from all other issues.
In relation to the RPMs, the latest version of the Guidebook seeks to strike an unsuccessful compromise in some issues and provides some significant changes to the previous version. However, for me two things stand out more than the others and I don’t suggest that the other issues are not of some concern: inclusion of all types of IP rights in the Trademark Clearinghouse and the ‘loser pays’ model of the Uniform Rapid Suspension System. Inclusion of all types of intellectual property in the Trademark Clearinghouse! The GAC’s responses in relation to the Clearinghouse provide some great insight regarding the vision the trademark holders in association with the various governments – most certainly those that have already indicated their wish for strict forms of IP protection – have for such a mechanism. In particular, the GAC provided some clarification regarding its proposal for the inclusion of all types of intellectual property rights within the Clearinghouse. According to the answers submitted to the Board, the GAC explains that such an inclusion “would obviate the necessity to develop separate mechanisms for these types of intellectual property”. Exactly when did we discuss and further decide that copyrights and patents would require a similar mechanism? Where did ICANN acquire the legitimacy to authorize the creation of a mechanism for types of intellectual property other than trademarks? Well, we all know that ICANN does not have the legitimacy to even suggest policy for other types of IP rights (personally, I even contest its legitimacy to create policy for trademarks) and in any discussions we had about potential inclusion of other IP rights in the Clearinghouse even the trademark community failed to sell such a proposal. Simply, there are no valid arguments that would justify ICANN opening up the Clearinghouse to any forms of IP that can be valid or legitimate. So, this begs the question: why does the GAC insist on it? I can think of one answer: by including all types of IP rights in the Clearinghouse, the IP community will have the opportunity to use the Clearinghouse for all kinds of purposes, e.g. for blacklisting domain names and registrants. This is not a Hollywood science fiction scenario (and, if it is, I certainly claim copyright before I get bullied into surrendering it). Both in the US (COICA) and UK (Policy dealing with domain names used in criminal activity), Congress and NOMINET respectively, are exploring ways concerning the take down of domain names that facilitate the infringement of copyright and the promotion/sale of rogue pharmaceuticals and counterfeit goods. We all know and have read the arguments with this kind of regulation – free speech, human rights and fair use are all at stake. We also know that certain governments do not pay attention to these concerns and continue to pretend that the only real victim here is the IP community. But, whereas such regulatory initiatives were limited to certain jurisdictions and national sovereignties, now they might become international policy. My point is this: if all types of IP rights were to be included, what would stop the Clearinghouse from using its database in a way far and beyond its original scope? What would prevent the Clearinghouse to start a separate ‘blacklist’ that lists those domain names that legislation like COICA addresses? How can we ensure that the database that will be created under COICA will not be fed into the Clearinghouse? In all this, ICANN does not appear to take the GAC’s considerations on board, but does not appear to either categorically reject them. ICANN chooses to be vague on this issue. In section 3.2.4, ICANN’s final version of the Clearinghouse states: “The proposed standards for inclusion in the Clearinghouse are: other marks that constitute intellectual property”, which might simply be addressing what GAC refers to as ‘local rights’, although, even in this case, local rights are subject to cultural relativism and are highly contested because of their highly national nature; and, then in section 3.6 “Data supporting entry into the Clearinghouse of marks that constitute intellectual property of types other than those set forth in sections 3.2.1-3.2.3 above…”, which sort of gives the Clearinghouse carte blanche into accepting other forms of IP rights; and, finally, the way the term ‘ancillary services’ is used in the final version of the Guidebook is also alarming. The original vision of ‘ancillary services’ was to put to rest the debate as to whether common law marks should be included in the Clearinghouse; and, because the community could not decide, the idea was to allow the inclusion of common law marks through an ‘ancillary services’ mechanism. Now, ancillary services are divorced from their association with what types of trademarks should be included and could be interpreted as allowing the Clearinghouse to provide services – classed as ‘ancillary - for other types of intellectual property. This provision in the Clearinghouse is vague and opaque – and we all know vague policies can mean one thing: wide, discretionary and potentially bias interpretations. At least, this is the case with ICANN’s policies and I hope I get to be wrong. The ‘Loser Pay’s model in the Uniform Rapid Suspension System (URS) In light of news hitting the Internet that trademark bullying is not only a rumor but a current practice exercised by big and powerful trademark owners, ICANN has submitted in its recent version of the URS a provision for a ‘loser pays’ all model to domain name disputes. According to the provision: “A limited ‘loser pays’ model has been adopted for the URS. Complaints listing twenty-six (26) or more disputed domain names will be subject to an Response Fee which will be refundable to the prevailing party. Under no circumstances shall the Response Fee exceed the fee charged to the Complainant”. Although the reality is indeed that if someone registers this amount of domain names corresponding to a certain mark, that someone is most probably a cybersquatter, ICANN does not explicitly state whether these 26 domain names should come from the same individual. ICANN only states that the Complaint should list 26 or more domain names, but it does not clarify whether the complaint should be against the same respondent. So, again here, this provision can be read as allowing the Complainant to bring one complaint for several domain names which concern the same mark but are registered by different registrants. Can this be the case? There is nothing to suggest otherwise and, if the discretion panels normally exercise in such policies is indicative, nothing stops the URS from being expanded to such a procedural allowance. But, the ‘loser pays’ model, even if this limited, creates a much bigger problem. It feeds into trademark intimidation and bullying, sort of legitimizing it if you wish. The fact is that, so far, trademark bullying occurred through the fear of court litigation and its associated costs. The message to registrants was clear: we will sue you if you don’t comply and, if we do, you end up engaging and paying a lot of money, which we can afford and you can’t. So, its better to surrender your domain name now that you still have the time. All this was happening at a national level. Now, with this provision, the same practice will also happen at an international level with the blessings of ICANN. Imagine, for instance, someone who has registered 26 variations of a trademark for free speech purposes. Will that someone be subject to a URS and, more importantly, to a potential ‘loser pays’ model? This provision will certainly disincentivize legitimate registrants from responding, encouraging further the existing culture of defaults and creating an unbalanced and biased system. Needless to say that the URS is not equipped for such a provision. The URS lacks the checks and balances that exist in traditional adjudication as it promotes speed. You cannot have a system that wishes to award such costs and not have some checks that ensure this takes place according to due process. Systems, like the UDRP and this one, are prone to bias and abuse as they are conceived to protect certain rights – so why feed into this bias? So, ICANN has entered again a very dangerous territory. The compromise solution that ICANN provided (remember that the GAC originally did not want to put a cap in the ‘loser pays’ model) is as problematic. The criterion that ICANN uses is not clear and the provision is certainly open to the widest interpretations possible. I hope I am mistaken here, but this system can easily backfire and it will certainly allow many mark holders to use also the URS as a tool for intimidation and bullying. |
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